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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication.
Survivable Traffic Grooming in Elastic Optical
Networks - Shared Protection
Menglin Liu, Massimo Tornatore, and Biswanath Mukherjee
Abstract—This study investigates the survivable traffic groom-
ing problem for elastic optical networks with flexible spectrum
grid employing new transmission technologies. In such networks,
instead of following the traditional fixed ITU-T wavelength grid,
optical transponders are capable of properly tuning their rates,
and consequently their spectrum occupation, by introducing the
fine-granular spectrum unit, called a frequency slot. The number
of contiguous frequency slots allocated to an optical path (i.e.,
lightpath) is adjusted to the current network flow. In this study,
we propose a novel shared protection specific to elastic networks,
namely, elastic separate-protection-at-connection (ESPAC). It not
only provides traditional backup sharing, but also offers a new
opportunity of spectrum sharing enabled by the elasticity of the
transponders: 1) if the working paths of two connections are
link disjoint physically, and 2) if their backup paths traverse two
lightpaths which are adjacent on a fiber link, then the two backup
lightpaths can share spectrum. The new opportunity of spectrum
sharing is realized by using First-Fit to assign working traffic
and Last-Fit to assign backup traffic, and allowing spectrum
overlap between adjacent backup wavelengths. The elasticity of
the transponder enables the expansion and contraction of the
lightpaths, thus when a single failure occurs in the network,
lightpaths carrying backup flows can be tuned to appropriate
rates in such a way that the overlap spectrum is used by only
one of the adjacent lightpaths. The results show ESPAC is very
spectrum efficient in elastic network setting.
Index Terms—Shared protection, Elastic optical network, Traf-
fic grooming, Dynamic provisioning, Spectrum assignment.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The term “elasticity” refers to a set of recent innovations
in optical networks. In an elastic optical network, rather
than following the ITU-T fixed grid with its rigid 50/100
GHz bandwidth, appropriate-sized optical bandwidth in sub-
and super-wavelength granularity is allocated to an end-to-
end path [1], achieving significant gains in network design
and operation in terms of CAPEX, and OPEX [2]–[4]. Such
evolution is particularly beneficial for the increasing hetero-
geneity of today’s traffic, thanks to the new advances in
transmission technologies (e.g., new modulation techniques,
such as optical OFDM, coherent detection, and advanced dig-
ital signal processing) that promise to provide flexibility [5],
reconfigurability, and higher network agility. Such advances
facilitate the flexible expansion and contraction of lightpaths
(which are therefore referred to as elastic lightpaths) according
to the traffic volume and user request [6]. Thus, when the
Menglin Liu (mlliu@ucdavis.edu) and Biswanath Mukherjee are with the
Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis, CA USA.
Massimo Tornatore is with the Department of Computer Science, University
of California, Davis, CA USA, and with the Department of Electronics and
Information, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
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flow on a lightpath decreases, some frequency slots it occupied
before can now be released and used by other lightpaths [7].
In optical networks, the failure of a network element (e.g.,
a fiber cut) can cause huge data loss, resulting in the failure
of several lightpaths. This problem becomes more compelling
when lightpaths are migrated to high bit rates, such as 40, 100
Gbps and beyond, which are expected to be accommodated
in future elastic networks. Hence, survivability in elastic
networks is a critical issue. Shared protection has been studied
with static traffic (where a traffic demand matrix is known
[8]), and for dynamic provisioning using online approaches
[9]. Ref. [10] proposed dedicated protection in transparent
flexible-grid network, showing better spectrum utilization by
flexible bandwidth assignment. Ref. [11] proposed a best-effort
restoration while satisfying the service level specifications,
taking advantage of the elastic bandwidth variation.
However, most studies on elastic networks are based on the
assumption that one lightpath is provided for each connection
request [6]–[12], which cannot guarantee optimum spectrum
utilization because a fair amount of spectrum is wasted as
guard bands. To further improve the spectrum efficiency, we
recast in elastic networks the classical problem of protected
traffic grooming in WDM networks [13], which allows us to
multiplex different connections on one lightpath. Therefore,
grooming capabilities for transit signals must be incorporated
in the bandwidth-variable wavelength cross-connects (BV-
WXCs) to switch elastic lightpaths [1]. Note that the problem
of traffic grooming in elastic networks is a nascent research
field and has been so far considered only in unprotected
networks, e.g., [14] proposed an electrical-traffic-grooming
network design and showed that it saves at least 8% average
spectrum utilization compared to the non-traffic-grooming
approach. The work in [15] proposed an optical-grooming
network design where they groom the traffics from the same
source onto one lightpath, and drop or switch optically a subset
of frequency slots at the intermediate nodes along the route
to their corresponding destinations. Traffic grooming can also
lead to a saving of energy consumption, according to [3].
In this study, we propose to use First-Fit to assign spectrum
for the working paths, and Last-Fit to assign spectrum for
the backup paths. We allow spectrum overlap between backup
wavelengths. Based on these spectrum assignment schemes,
we propose a protection approach – elastic separate-protection-
at-connection (ESPAC), providing end-to-end protection at
connection level [16]. A path that carries traffic during normal
operation is called a working path. When any fiber link on the
working path fails, the connection is rerouted on a backup
path. Under ESPAC, the spectrum of a lightpath can be used
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Fig. 1. An example of FFW-LFB.
by either working paths or backup paths, but not both. If the
working paths of two connections are link disjoint, and their
backup paths traverse two lightpaths, which are adjacent on
a fiber, then the two backup lightpaths can share spectrum.
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to
investigate this type of backup-sharing approach and its impact
considering traffic grooming in elastic networks.
The rest of this study is organized as follows. In Section II,
we present the proposed ESPAC in elastic networks. Section
III presents heuristic algorithms and Section IV provides
illustrative results. Section V concludes the study.
II. E LASTIC S EPARATE P ROTECTION AT C ONNECTION
In this section, we first give a brief review of shared protec-
tion in WDM networks (non-elastic shared protection). Then
we introduce the spectrum assignment schemes in ESPAC and
we describe it with examples.
A. Traditional Shared protection
We explain shared protection in WDM networks in Fig. 2.
Assume there are two connections: c1 is from node 1 to 2,
and c2 is from node 5 to 6, both of which are full-wavelength
capacity. In Fig. 2(a), c1 ’s working path traverses lightpath l1 ,
and its backup path is the concatenation of lightpaths l3 , l4 ,
and l5 . c2 ’s working path traverses l2 , and its backup path is
the concatenation of l6 , l4 , and l7 . Since l1 and l2 are link
disjoint, their backup paths can share l4 . An alternative shared
protection is shown in Fig. 2(b): l1 and l2 are protected by l3
and l4 respectively. On link 3→4, l3 and l4 can share the same
wavelength because their working paths are link disjoint. The
difference between these two is the number of transponders
used for backup provisioning: in Fig. 2(a), we need five pairs
of transponders, while in Fig. 2(b), we need two pairs.
Figure 2 represents two sharing opportunities offered by
non-elastic shared protection. (1) If the working paths of two
connections are link disjoint, they can share the same backup
lightpath (Fig. 2(a)). (2) If the working paths of two backup
lightpaths are link disjoint and these two backup lightpaths
go through the same physical link, then they can share the
same wavelength on that link (Fig. 2(b)). But since in WDM
networks, each wavelength channel is limited within its rigid
grid, non-elastic shared protection cannot provide spectrum
sharing between adjacent wavelength channels.
However, enabled by the elasticity of the transponders,
ESPAC offers a new opportunity of spectrum sharing: if the
working paths of two connections are link disjoint, and if their
backup paths traverse two lightpaths which are adjacent on a
fiber link, then the two backup lightpaths can share spectrum.
We introduce spectrum assignment schemes in ESPAC next.
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(a) c1 and c2 share backup lightpath l4 (b) backup lightpaths l3 and l4 can
share the same wavelength
Fig. 2. Traditional shared protection in WDM network c1 :1→2, c2 :5→6,
both of which are full-wavelength capacity.
B. Spectrum Assignment Schemes in ESPAC
The flow on a lightpath is bounded by the maximum
capacity of a transponder. Correspondingly, the spectrum used
by a lightpath, adjusted to the flow on it, is limited by a
spectrum range. For example, in Fig. 3, the spectrum range
is 8 slots. If we assume the spectrum used by a lightpath is
allocated around its central frequency, then the transponder can
be tuned so that the lightpath occupies 2/4/6/8 slots (shown
as different degree of gray). We define a wavelength channel
as the spectrum range of a lightpath with its guard bands. For
example, in Fig. 3, guard band is 2 slots, and a wavelength
channel is 10 slots.
We use First-Fit spectrum assignment for the routing of the
Working flows (FFW), and Last-Fit spectrum assignment to
route the Backup flows from the other end of the fiber (LFB).
Between the wavelengths assigned to carry backup flow, we
allow spectrum overlap. For example, in Fig. 1, the number
of frequency slots that backup wavelength channels overlap
with each other is 3. The overlapped frequency slot is shared
between adjacent wavelength channels in the time domain: it is
occupied by at most one of the adjacent wavelengths at a time.
If the flow on lightpath 2 decreases but the flow on lightpath
1 increases, the elastic transponder can be tuned as shown in
the callout in Fig. 1, where the shaded region represents the
used spectrum. Enough guard band must be satisfied between
the flows on adjacent wavelengths.
C. Examples
Below, we illustrate ESPAC via examples on NSFNET
in Fig. 4, where each edge corresponds to a bidirectional
fiber. We make the following assumptions: each frequency
slot utilizes 12.5 GHz; the modulation level for used slot is 4
bits/symbol; when additional flow is groomed into an existing
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Fig. 3. Spectrum assignment of a wavelength channel.
(a) after provisioning c1
(b) after provisioning c2
(c) after provisioning c3
Fig. 4. ESPAC: provisioning connection c1 (h2, 6, 100 Gbpsi),
c2 (h1, 8, 400 Gbpsi), and c3 (h3, 10, 400 Gbpsi).
lightpath, the spectrum is allocated around the existing flow
centered by the central frequency; the maximum capacity of
elastic transponder is 400 Gbps, which needs 8 frequency slots;
guard band is 2 slots; and the overlapped spectrum shared by
adjacent backup wavelength channels is 3 slots, which means
the interval between adjacent central frequencies is 8+2-3=7
slots. A connection request c is represented as hs, d, Bi, which
specifies the source node, destination node, and bandwidth
requirement in terms of Gbps.
When the first connection request c1 h2, 6, 100 Gbpsi ar-
rives, 2 frequency slots are needed to carry it. One way
of provisioning c1 is shown in Fig. 4(a). Its working path
traverses lightpath l1 , the solid line, and its backup path
traverses hl2 , l3 i, the dashed lines. l2 utilizes spectrum on links
2→4 and 4→5, shown in Fig. 5(a), where dashes represent
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(a) spectrum utilization on links 2 → 4/4 → 5 after provisioning c1
(b) spectrum utilization on links 2 → 4/4 → 5 after provisioning c2
(c) spectrum utilization on links 2 → 4/4 → 5 after provisioning c3
(d) spectrum utilization on links 2 → 4/4 → 5 after provisioning c3 if
using traditional shared protection
Fig. 5. Spectrum utilization of provisioning c1 , c2 , and c3 .
the spectrum range of l2 , and dark gray represents the backup
spectrum reserved on l2 for c1 , i.e., 2 slots.
Suppose c1 remains in the network when c2
h1, 8, 400 Gbpsi arrives, which needs 8 slots. One solution
of provisioning c2 is shown in Fig. 4(b). The working path
traverses lightpath l4 , and its backup path traverses lightpaths
hl5 , l2 , l6 i. c2 ’s working path (i.e., l4 ) is link disjoint with
c1 ’s working path (i.e., l1 ), and their backup paths are both
routed on l2 , so they can share 100-Gbps capacity on l2 ,
shown in Fig. 5(b). If l1 fails, c1 will be rerouted on l2 so
that its backup flow consumes spectrum from A to B in Fig.
5(b). If l4 fails, c2 will be rerouted on l2 so that its backup
flow consumes spectrum from C to D in Fig. 5(b).
Suppose c1 and c2 remain in the network when c3
h3, 10, 400 Gbpsi arrives, which needs 8 slots. One way of
provisioning c3 is shown in Fig. 4(c). Its working path
traverses lightpath l7 and its backup path traverses lightpaths l8
and l9 . Because c3 ’s working path (i.e., l7 ) is not link disjoint
with c1 ’s working path (i.e., l1 ), their backup lightpaths l2
and l8 cannot be assigned on the same wavelength. Under
ESPAC, we can assign them on adjacent wavelength channels
overlapped with each other shown in Fig. 5(c). If link 3→6
fails, c1 will be rerouted on l2 so that its backup flow consumes
spectrum from A to B; c3 will be rerouted on l8 such that its
backup flow consume spectrum from E to F . So even if link
3→6 fails, there is still a 2-slot guard band between l2 and
l8 . Note that the working path of c2 (i.e., l4 ) is link disjoint
with the working path of c3 (i.e., l7 ), so their backup paths
can share the spectrum overlap: if l4 fails, c2 will be rerouted
on l2 so that its backup flow takes spectrum from C to D;
if l7 fails, c3 will be rerouted on l8 such that its backup flow
takes spectrum from E to F . But since l4 and l7 will not fail
at the same time (single failure assumption), their wavelength
channels can overlap 3 frequency slots with each other on
spectrum and it is guaranteed that the spectrum overlap is
used by only one of them at one time.
Now we show in Fig. 5(d) the spectrum utilization on link
2 → 4/4 → 5 after provisioning c3 if we use traditional
shared protection under the assumption that we use the same
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routing as ESPAC. Because c3 ’s working path (i.e., l7 ) is not
link disjoint with c1 ’s working path (i.e., l1 ), their backup
lightpaths l2 and l8 cannot be assigned on the same wave-
length. If we assign l2 and l8 as adjacent wavelength channels,
the wavelength channels must be side by side and separated
by the 2-slot guard band, because using traditional shared
protection, wavelength channels cannot share spectrum with
each other. Therefore, using ESPAC, we save three frequency
slots, compared with traditional shared protection.
In the previous example, we have shown how ESPAC can
enable backup sharing both as in traditional shared protection
and also among spectrum adjacent connections. ESPAC is
enabled by the expansion and contraction of transponders in
elastic networks, which allows us to break the fixed boundary
between lightpaths on spectrum and explore more flexible
utilization of bandwidth resources.
III. H EURISTIC A LGORITHMS
In this section, we propose a heuristic approach to solve
ESPAC under dynamic traffic.
A. Grooming-Node Model and Network-State Representation
We adopt an auxiliary graph [17] to solve the routing and
spectrum assignment problem in ESPAC. We use the terms
vertex and edge in the auxiliary graph, corresponding to node
and link in the original network. A node in the original network
relates to W + 1 vertices λ0 , λ1 , · · · , λW in the auxiliary
graph. λ0 is on lightpath layer, and λi is on wavelength
layer i (i = 1, 2, · · · , W here and in the following) (W
is the number of wavelengths carried by each fiber). Each
wavelength in our hypothesis of spectrum utilization identifies
a central frequency. There are three kinds of directed edges
in the auxiliary graph. 1) Transponder edge: hλ0 , λi i as the
transmitter, and hλi , λ0 i as the receiver. 2) Wavelength edge:
a link in the original graph is represented as W wavelength
edges from vertex λi at its source node to vertex λi at its
destination node at each wavelength layer. 3) Lightpath edge: a
lightpath is represented as an edge from vertex λ0 at its source
node to vertex λ0 at its destination node. As an example, the
state of node 3 in Fig. 4(c) is illustrated in Fig. 6. Assume
l1 takes wavelength 1, l7 takes wavelength 2, and l8 occupies
wavelength 9. In Fig. 6, the capacities of the four gray edges
are zero, indicating the corresponding wavelengths are no
longer free.
By modeling every grooming node as above, the current net-
work state, including wavelength usage and existing lightpath
information, can be represented as one auxiliary graph.
B. Route Computation
A formal representation of the approach for route compu-
tation is shown in Alg. 1. We are given the physical topology
represented by a directed graph G = (V, E, W ), where V
denotes the set of nodes, equipped with BV-WXCs, E denotes
the set of directed single fibers. Initially, in Step 1, there are
|V |·(W +1) vertices, 2W ·|V | transponder edges, and W ·|E|
wavelength edges in Ga . In response to each connection
request, lightpath edges may be added. Guard band is given as
GB. As discussed in Section II, we use FFW-LFB spectrum
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Fig. 6. Graph representation of node 3 in Fig. 4(c).
TABLE I
C OST A SSIGNMENT S CHEME IN A LG . 1
edge e κ(e)
layerIndex < W · p 10−5 *layerIndex+1
wavelength
layerIndex > W · p 10−5 *(W + 1−layerIndex)+1
lightpath 0.7*hopNumber
transponder 0.01
assignment. So, as input, we are also given a parameter p,
i.e., the proportion of wavelengths used for working flow. In
other words, among all W wavelengths, we use the first W · p
wavelengths to route the working flow, and the last W ·(1−p)
wavelengths to route the backup flow. OVLP is the number of
overlapped slots between backup wavelength channels. Fig. 1
shows an example of FFW-LFB where GB=2 slots, p = 0.5,
and OVLP is 3 slots. The left three wavelengths are used as
working, and the interval between adjacent central frequencies
is 10 slots. The right three wavelengths are used as backup,
and the interval between adjacent central frequencies is 7 slots.
Every edge e in the auxiliary graph is associated with
two attributes: available capacity and cost, which is denoted
as κ(e). Table I shows the cost assignment scheme in our
study. We use FF to route working flow, so the cost of the
wavelengths from layer 1 to W · p increase as layer index
increases. The factor 10−5 before the layerIndex is a small
value so that the paths with high layer index still have chances
to be chosen. Similarly, we use LF to route backup flow,
thus the cost of the wavelengths from layer W · p to W
decrease as the layer index increases. The cost of a lightpath
is proportional to its hop number, so that, in Step 2 in Alg.
1, the algorithm will not choose a working path, routed on
existing lightpaths but going through many hops, failing to
find a backup path. The cost of a transponder is 0.01, which is
more dominant than 10−5 , the factor before layerIndex, so that
the algorithm will first choose a list of spectrum-continuous
paths, and then apply FF for working and LF for backup.
To compute the K minimal-cost paths for the working path
in Step 2, we do not consider the existing backup lightpaths
or wavelengths with layer index larger than W · p because
1) under ESPAC, a lightpath carries either working flow or
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Algorithm 1 ESPAC
Require: G = (V, E, W ), c = hs, d, B, ti, routing and
spectrum usage of existing lightpaths/connections, GB, C,
OVLP, and K.
Ensure: link-disjoint working and backup paths, return
NULL if no such paths are found.
1: construct the auxiliary graph Ga to represent the current
network state (including wavelength usage and existing
lightpath information), as shown in Section IV.A.
2: compute K minimum-cost paths Pw = {pkw |1 ≤ k ≤
K 0 , 0 ≤ K 0 ≤ K} in Ga from the lightpath-layer vertex
of node s to the lightpath-layer vertex of node d based on
the following edge-cost function κw (e) (if there are less
than K paths between the vertices, then the algorithm will
compute all the K 0 eligible paths, 0 ≤ K 0 ≤ K); return
NULL if Pw is empty,
1) if e represents a transponder, then κw (e) = κ(e)
2) otherwise
(a) if Cw (e), the free capacity of e is less than
B or the wavelength layer index of e is larger
than W · p, κw (e) = ∞
(b) otherwise, κw (e) = κ(e)
3: k = 1,
4: while k ≤ K 0 and backup path pkb is not found do
5: for candidate working path pkw , compute a minimum-
cost link-disjoint path pkb from the lightpath-layer vertex
of node s to the lightpath-layer vertex of node d based
on the following edge-cost function κb (e):
1) if e does not represent a lightpath or a wavelength,
then κb (e) = κ(e)
2) otherwise
(a) if Cb (e), the free capacity of e is less than B
or the wavelength layer index of e is smaller
than W · p, or e is not link disjoint with pkw
κb (e) = ∞
(b) otherwise, κb (e) = κ(e)
6: k=k+1 if pkb is not found,
7: end while
8: return NULL if pkb is not found,
9: update network state: update the spectrum usage of light-
paths involved in the paths pkw and pkb ; set up new
lightpaths (if necessary).
10: for every lightpath l that pkb traverses, νle ← νle + B for
every link e used by the lightpaths that pkw traverses,
11: return pkw as the working path and pkb as the backup path.
backup flow, but not both; and 2) all wavelengths with layer
index larger than W · p are reserved for backup flow routing
in our approach. The maximum capacity of the transponder is
C. The free capacity of a working wavelength/lightpath edge
e in this step is denoted as Cw (e), where Cw (e) = C if e is a
wavelength. Cw (e) = C − Cworking (e) if e is a lightpath and
Cworking (e) is the current working flow on e.
When we compute the minimal-cost path for the backup
path in Step 5, we do not consider all the existing working
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Fig. 7. An example of Cmax (l1 ) < C.
lightpaths or wavelengths with layer index smaller than W · p.
The free capacity of a backup wavelength/lightpath edge e
in this step is denoted as Cb (e), where Cb (e) = Cmax (e) −
Cbackup (e), Cmax (e) is the maximum capacity that can be
carried on e, and Cbackup (e) is the backup capacity already
reserved on e (Cbackup (e) = 0 if e is a wavelength). Here,
Cmax (e) may not be as much as C, an example of which
is shown in Fig. 7. Lightpath l1 has an adjacent lightpath l2 .
Since l2 is using the overlap between l1 and l2 , the maximum
capacity of l1 is s2 , which is smaller than C, marked as s1 .
Thus, to compute Cmax (e) of a backup wavelength/lightpath
e, we need to first compute Cbackup (l), where l is the adjacent
backup lightpath of e, and Cbackup (l) is the total backup
capacity that has been reserved for backup flow. To compute
Cbackup (l), we associate l with a conflict set νl represented
0 0 0
as an integer set, {νle |∀e0 ∈ E, 0 ≤ νle ≤ C}, where νle
represents the amount of flow that will be rerouted on lightpath
l when link e0 fails:
0
Cbackup (l) = max∀e0 ∈pkw {νle }, (1)
where pkw is the kth candidate working path calculated in
Step 2. In traditional shared protection, Cmax (e) is C when
e denotes a backup wavelength/lightpath, and the spectrum
reserved on one backup lightpath does not affect the maximum
capacity of its adjacent wavelengths and lightpaths.
IV. I LLUSTRATIVE N UMERICAL R ESULTS
A. Network and Traffic Model
We simulate a dynamic network environment with the
assumptions that the connection arrival process is Poisson and
the connection holding time follows a negative exponential
distribution with unit (normalized) mean. Connections requests
are unidirectional and uniformly distributed among all node
pairs. 100,000 connections are simulated in each experiment.
We consider a typical backbone network topology in Fig. 4.
Assume each fiber has a total spectrum of 4400 GHz (the same
as 88 wavelengths with 50 GHz grid as in WDM networks).
The capacity of the elastic transponder is 400 Gbps. The
spectrum range of a lightpath is 8 slots. We assume the guard
band is 25 GHz, which is 2 frequency slots. To quantitatively
present the performance of our approach, we use bandwidth-
blocking ratio (BBR), defined as the amount of bandwidth
blocked over the amount of bandwidth offered.
In our simulations, we consider the effect of two parameters:
p and OVLP. Table II gives the total number of wavelengths
and total spectrum reserved as backup on a fiber link according
to different p and OVLP values. The bigger p and OVLP,
the less total backup spectrum we reserve. Here we want to
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TABLE II
N ETWORK R ESOURCE A SSIGNMENT UNDER D IFFERENT S IMULATION
S ETTINGS
Total number Total backup spectrum
OVLP of wavelengths (in terms of GHz)
p = 0.5 p = 0.6 p = 0.5 p = 0.6
0 35 35 2175 1750
1 37 36 2037.5 1587.5
2 39 38 1925 1525
3 41 39 1787.5 1350
4 43 41 1625 1250

emphasize that, when OVLP=0, it means adjacent wavelength

channels do not share spectrum with each other, which,
in terms of spectrum utilization, is the same as traditional
shared protection in a 400-Gbps WDM network where each (a) p = 0.5
wavelength takes 125 GHz (100 GHz is spectrum range and
25 GHz is guard band). Though 400-Gbps WDM network
is a challenge for the technology today, here as we focus
on spectrum utilization, we consider ESPAC OVLP=0 to be
the same with 400 Gbps WDM. So when we compare BBR
with OVLP varying from 0 to 4, we are essentially comparing
shared protection in WDM network (OVLP=0) with ESPAC
under different spectrum sharing between adjacent lightpaths
(OVLP=1,2,3,4). With this in mind, let us look into the results.

B. Results
We first present a set of results where all the connections
request are 100 Gbps. Fig. 8(a) reports the results for p = 0.5,
which means the number of working wavelengths is the
same as that of backup wavelengths. The scenario “100 Gbps (b) p = 0.6
WDM” represents traditional shared protection in a 100-Gbps
WDM network, where a connection will fully fill in one
wavelength. For other scenarios with “OVLP” values, each
lightpath is 400 Gbps. We can see that because grooming
100-Gbps connection unto 400-Gbps lightpath uses much less
spectrum as guard band, results with OVLP values have much
lower BBR than 100 Gbps WDM. Among the ESPAC results,
the best OVLP value depends on the network offered load.
When the traffic load 1100 Erlang, the larger the OVLP, the
more efficiently the spectrum is utilized (i.e., OVLP=4, where
the reserved backup spectrum is 1625 GHz according to Table
II). When the traffic load ≤1100 Erlang, a “medium”-size
overlap spectrum gives the lowest BBR (i.e., OVLP=2 or 3,
where the reserved backup spectrum is 1925 GHz or 1787.5
GHz according to Table II). (c) FFW-LFB with different p values and FF with different
overlap values
The BBR for p = 0.6 are given in Fig. 8(b). We observe
different rules of best OVLP values from p = 0.5. When the Fig. 8. BBR versus network offered load for connection = 100 Gbps.
traffic load ≥1200 Erlang, 2-slot backup sharing gives the
lowest BBR. When load ≤1100 Erlang, 1-slot backup sharing
is the most beneficial. overlap backup spectrum, the BBR is higher because there
In Fig. 8(c), a point of the three FFW-LFB scenarios is not enough spectrum to route working flow. If we reserve
corresponds to the lowest BBR of a specific p value, with less backup spectrum, which means larger p value or more
its corresponding OVLP value shown beside the point. We overlap backup spectrum, the BBR is higher because there
observe that the network setting of p = 0.6 always has the is not enough spectrum to route backup flow. In Fig. 8(c),
lowest BBR with OVLP=1 or 2. According to Table II, in we also compare the FFW-LFB spectrum assignment with FF.
such scenarios, the reserved backup spectrums are 1587.5 GHz Under FF, working and backup traffics are assigned from the
and 1525 GHz out of 4400 GHz on a fiber. If we reserve same end of the fiber without differentiation. For all traffic
more backup spectrum, which means smaller p value or less loads, FFW-LFB p = 0.6 has the lowest BBR. When the

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traffic load ≤1200 Erlang, FF OVLP=0 has higher BBR but

outperforms FFW-LFB p=0.5 and p=0.7. When the traffic
load ≥1300 Erlang, all FFW-LFB scenarios outperform FF.
Thus, FFW-LFB with appropriate backup overlap is best fit
for elastic network especially when the network load is high.
We also show how different overlap values between adjacent
wavelengths effect BBR under FF, and observe that allowing
overlap under FF is not beneficial, i.e., FF OVLP=0 gives the
lowest BBR among all FF scenarios.
In our results shown in Fig. 9, the number of connection
requests follows the distribution 100 Gbps : 200 Gbps : 300
Gbps : 400 Gbps = 8 : 4 : 2 : 1. Fig. 9(a) reports the results
for p =0.6. For all traffic loads, 1-slot overlap gives the lowest
BBR. When traffic load is low (i.e., 450 Erlang), OVLP=0 has
(a) p = 0.6
closest BBR with OVLP=1. When traffic load is high (i.e., 650
Erlang), OVLP=2 has closest BBR with OVLP=1.
In Fig. 9(b), a point of the three FFW-LFB scenarios
corresponds to the lowest BBR of a specific p value under
a specific network load using ESPAC, with its corresponding
OVLP values shown beside the point. Among these three
scenarios, p =0.6 always has the lowest BBR with OVLP=1.
For p=0.7, OVLP=0 always gives the lowest BBR, and when
traffic load is high (i.e., 650 Erlang), it has close BBR with
OVLP=1 p=0.6. We also compare FFW-LFB with FF in this
setting: FFW-LFB p=0.6 outperforms all FF scenarios. When
traffic load ≤550 Erlang, the BBR of FF OVLP=0 is higher
than FFW-LFB p=0.6 but is lower than the other two FFW-
LFB scenarios. When traffic load ≥600 Erlang, FFW-LFB
outperforms all FF scenarios. Thus, in this heterogeneous
(b) FFW-LFB with different p values and FF with different
traffic profile, FFW-LFB with appropriate backup overlap is overlap values
also best fit for elastic network.
Fig. 9. BBR versus network offered load for heterogeneous connection
V. C ONCLUSION requests.

We investigated the survivable traffic grooming problem

for elastic optical networks. Based on a new elastic-width
spectrum assignment scheme, enabled by the elasticity of the
optical transponder, we proposed elastic separate protection at
connection (ESPAC), exploring sharing spectrum between ad-
jacent backup lightpaths – for grooming a connection request
with shared protection against single fiber failures. We also
proposed a First-Fit-for-working, Last-Fit-for-backup spec-
trum assignment, specifically to ESPAC. Our results show that
this new backup sharing in elastic network context achieves
significant gain on spectrum saving.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank Rui Wang for his help with this study.
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